Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)

We published a document entitled Ending the Chaos, which clearly outlined the Labour Party's policies on asylum seekers, work permits and related issues. We have very clear policies, if Deputy Conor Lenihan would care to read them. To suggest, however, that because the Labour Party does not want to change the constitutional provision concerning children who are born in Ireland, it therefore has an open-door policy on asylum seekers and refugees, seems to be quite an extraordinary leap to make. If that were the case, the Government would have had an open-door policy on asylum seeking until such time as it decided to introduce this proposed referendum. Did the Government parties have an open-door policy on asylum seeking up to now? That is the conclusion one would have to draw, given the remarks made by Deputy Mulcahy.

Deputy Andrews was reasoned and balanced in most of what he had to say but I wish to pick up on one of his comments, if I have understood it correctly. He suggested that all asylum seekers are economic migrants, which introduces a dangerous element in the debates that will continue around this issue, even though they should not be relevant to the specific matter we are being asked to address. Of course, all asylum seekers are not economic migrants. Many people have been granted asylum here because they have been persecuted and were in danger of being killed in the countries from which they came. If we allow the myth to go out that all asylum seekers are economic migrants, we will undermine the status of those people who have been granted refugee status here.

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